An Egyptian engineer has designed a robot that can be controlled remotely and can take swabs from suspected novel coronavirus patients, which reduces interaction and thus exposure to risk after an outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Engineer Mahmoud El-Koumi, a specialist in mechatronics, made the report in order to assist health staff during the pandemic.
After more than a month of work, the current model of the robot was able to measure temperatures, take swabs from the mouth, recognize faces, which are not covered by masks, and advise people about appropriate health care.
Regardless of its use in hospitals, El Koumi’s robot can also be used in shopping malls, banks, and airports to check the temperature and guide those who do not wear masks.
“The robot has specialized tasks through which it deals with the coronavirus. It also carries out many tasks including measuring temperature or detecting infected persons, whether in public places, malls, banks, and airports. It can measure a person’s temperature and if he discovers that a person has a fever, he will make an alarm,” El Koumi added.
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While his second model has proven successful, El Koumi noted that the third should be able to take nose swabs as well as more closely mimic physicians’ hand movement.
“Moreover, the robot can take the fingerprint swab and the PCR swab perfectly, instead of a technician or a doctor. Now he can take it from the mouth from the right side. Also, in the third version of the robot he will be able to take the swab from the nose quite accurately,” he revealed.
El-Koumi hopes that many hospitals and clinics will be able to benefit from his invention. Thus contracting the disease will be quite limited.
Egypt, the largest Arab country in terms of population, has recorded 44,598 confirmed cases of Covid-19 disease and 1,575 deaths so far.
